Every Tuesday night while she was studying at Dalhousie University in Halifax Rose Cousins would perform on Open Mic nights at the Tickle Trunk, a little basement bar that doesn’t exist anymore.
“I played on open mics for four years before I ever sang on stage at a real show — let alone sing my own songs,” she recalls. “I just kind of incubated and got to know people.”
Halifax is one of those places where everyone seems to have come from somewhere else and that holds true for Cousins who was born and raised on Prince Edward Island.
“I grew up on a farm,” she says. “It was very rural. Everything was very small town about it. My mom’s from Ontario so we travelled. We did actually travel quite a bit and into the States and stuff so we weren’t landlocked, or island-locked I should say. It was great. Every time I’m travelling and I get to go back to the Maritimes I’m thankful that that’s where I’m from because when I get to go home it’s a real retreat.”
Music has always been a part of Cousin’s life and she spent many hours singing with her sister and mother. “When I was very young I was really drawn to instrumental music,” she says. “I never wrote songs with lyrics. I would just learn songs on the piano that I heard or just make up instrumental pieces. It wasn’t until I was in my third year of university that I wrote anything that had lyrics to it.”
Early on she listened to a lot of singer/songwriters who were popular at the time such as Ani DiFranco, Lisa Loeb and Sarah McLachlan. As she got older and started to compose her own music Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and Joni Mitchell influenced her approach. The latter in particular has much in common with Cousins’ style - think Blue period Mitchell with an even rootsier sound. Songs like “A Case of You” and “River” would fit right in with Cousins’ compositions which alternate back and forth between guitar and piano.
“I got into guitar in the late ’90s,” Cousins says. “I picked it up at the end of my first year of university and probably played it more than I studied. I went to university and I thought I really needed to learn guitar. I had one friend, Craig from high school, who showed me a few things and then I met a girl in residence who had a guitar and she showed me a bunch of stuff. For some reason I was really hungry to do it.”
Over the past decade Cousins has released five recordings (two EPs: Only So Long, 2002 and Miles to Go, 2003, and three albums: If You Were for Me, 2006, The Send Off, 2009 and We Have Made a Spark, 2012) and shared stages with the likes of Kathleen Edwards, Jenn Grant, Joel Plaskett, In-Flight Safety, Two Hours Traffic, Matt Mays, Amelia Curran and Jill Barber.
The sublime We Have Made a Spark was recorded in Boston with a bunch of pals from that city’s thriving music scene. Cousins has been making her way down there for several years now and found a real connection and community spirit with the musicians she met there.
“I was listening to a lot of singer/songwriters that came out of Boston and while I was there on a business trip I went looking for the clubs where those people play and there was this place called Club Passim. I left a copy of my first EP at the club and went back to play nine or 10 months later in 2003. I’ve basically met everyone. That club tends to be a hub where singer/songwriters meet and I’ve heard a lot of amazing artists there. Those people have become my family in a way and that’s kind of why I chose to make my record down there this time.”
Sessions for We Have Made A Spark began in March 2011 after Cousins raised almost $25,000 through Kickstarter. She recorded the tracks with producer Zachariah Hickman at Boston’s Q Division Studios (where artists such as James Taylor, Aimee Mann and Patty Griffin have also recorded) enlisting musical friends from the region to help her flesh out the sound.
Everything was done live off the floor.
“It was awesome,” Cousins says. “It was basically choosing a big group of friends and making music with people who really, really care. It makes a difference.
I think that’s the cool thing about it. The songs just kind of developed with everybody living and breathing it at the same time and I think that’s reflected in the performances we captured.”
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